Installation

The MBDyn Toolbox consists of normal Matlab code files, and one C++ mex interface file which must be compiled before it can be used in Matlab. Releases will be distributed with the compiled mex file for several platforms, so if yusing an official release, you will not need to do any compilation and all that is required is that the code be present on the Matlab path,

You can add the code to the Matlab path by using the “Set Path” button which opens the Set Path dialog. From here, choose “Add With Subfolders” and select the MBDyn code directory.

Alternatively you can add the paths using the Matlab addpath and genpath commands, e.g.:

addpath ( genpath ('/my/code/directory/MBDyn') );

See the help for addpath and genpath for more information.

RenewNet Foundry

You may also have received the MBDyn Toolbox as part of the RenewNet Foundry package, in this case you should first refer to the README file in the top level of the RenewNet Foundry package and follow the instructions there. The RenewNet Foundry installation is automated through the rnfoundry_setup.m function, and the MBDyn Toolbox is installed automatically by this.

MBDyn

The MBDyn toolbox naturally requires a copy of MBDyn. Releases of the toolbox include a copy of MBDyn, but the official version may also be used. However, building MBDyn for Windows is not trivial, and official Windows releases are not available, so the bundled version is recommended for Windows. The MBDyn toolbox will locate the bundled version without help. On linux or unix systems you should follow the normal installation instructions for MBDyn. You can obtain the latest version of MBDyn from the MBDyn website.

Compiling the mex interface file

If you do not have the mex file for your computer platform, or you want to use the development code rather than a release, you will need to build it from source. However, the mex interface is stable and unlikely to change, so the release version of the compiled mex file is likely to work with newer Matlab sources.

To build the mex file you will also need a Matlab compatible C++ compiler and set it up within Matlab for use as a mex compiler. Development generally occurs on Linux, and only the gcc compiler on Linux, and Mingw compiler on Windows (which is a Windows port of gcc) have been tested. The use of Mingw if using Windows is therefore recommended.

Once a compiler is set up, the mex file can be created it can be created by using the function mexmbdyn_setup found in the top level MBDyn directory. See the help for mexmbdyn_setup for details on the use of this function.